In home, restaurant and commercial design applications, tables and counters are frequently cantilevered from a wall or other vertical surface by mounting the table or counter top on a wall bracket. For example, in many restaurants using booth seating arrangements, it is typical to find the eating table cantilevered from a wall. One of the advantages of such a design construction is that it eliminates the table pedestal or base from interfering with the user's legs and feet while sitting at the table. A further advantage of a cantilever table system is that in cleaning, it is possible to mop or sweep directly under the table without having to maneuver around table legs or a pedestal.
While table top cantilever systems have become well-known and widely used in various industrial and commercial applications, the systems are based on brackets that require the wall or support surface to be true to perpendicular. That is, one portion of the bracket is mounted onto the wall and a portion upon which a table top may be affixed extends outward at a right angle therefrom. Exemplary is a right angle wall mount bracket, one side of which mounts to the wall, and the other side of which extends perpendicularly outward from the wall. The table or counter top is mounted on the side extending from the wall. Another existing bracket used to cantilever mount a table on a wall is a bracket that has a middle portion angling between two perpendicular portions. Such a bracket also requires that the wall and table be perpendicular to one another.
Even in new building facilities, however, it is not uncommon for a wall to be slightly deviated from perpendicular to the ground. Accordingly, wall mounting systems frequently result in a table top being mounted at an angle which is perpendicular to the wall, but which is not necessarily a true or level angle. Because the table top is uneven, objects may slide when placed thereon. In the past, the installer would "shim" the table top by placing a thin piece of wood or metal (commonly called a "shim") between either the wall and the bracket or the table top and the bracket. The shim serves to level the surface of the table top. Other less frequently used methods of leveling the table top include actually bending the bracket to fit the wall and planing the underside of the table top or wall. Such approaches are not only quite time consuming and difficult and with respect to bending the mounting brackets, may result in metal fatigue.